Don't Look Behind You
by Sazuka57
Summary: Somone brings the Slender Man onto the Normandy...


**The Slender Effect aka _Don't Look Behind You_**

The first time they knew that something was wrong was when Joker pinged Shepard, telling her that something had gone wrong with EDI and urged her to return to the _Normandy_. She promptly did, only to find that EDI was functioning again and running diagnostics on herself, scanning for any signs of breach from Cerberus or malicious software. Shepard checked in with Joker and logged away the information to criticize for later, as she still had urgent errands she needed to run on the Citadel.

It wasn't until hours after they left the Citadel that someone pointed out that one of the crew members, Hawthorne, had gone missing. They didn't think too much of it, as thinking that he might have abandoned ship. Shepard felt a twinge of betrayal at the thought but didn't complain; Hawthorne had loved ones on the Citadel, and may have wanted to check up on him after Cerberus' attack on the station.

/-/-/-

The second time something went direly wrong was when Shepard had been talking to EDI when her mobile platform glitched and started stuttering over one word before shutting down completely. Shepard had looked at an alarmed Joker to ask him what was going on, but EDI powered back up and apologized for what had happened before she started running diagnostics again. Shepard investigated with Joker manually, but turned up nothing.

Two hours later, Engineer Daniels reported that her partner Engineer Donnelly was missing. Shepard ordered EDI to find him, but, to everyone's alarm, she didn't pick up any signs of him. They spent the next several hours searching for him but turned up nothing.

Shepard fell asleep with worry on her mind. They were in deep space, so unless EDI had thrown Donnelly out of an airlock and wasn't telling, there should have been some sign of him somewhere on the ship.

/-

The third time was a week later, when James Vega pinged Shepard from the shuttle bay and asked her to come down because she had "see it for herself to believe it."

What she went down to see was bits and pieces of someone strewn all over the Kodiak shuttles. James nauseously told her that he came down after breakfast and found it like that. Shepard tightened her lips into a thin line and pinged Garrus to help her investigate the scene.

Garrus, ever the detective, looked grim as he studied the scene. He concluded that the lack of blood meant that the killing and disassembling of the body happened elsewhere, and that whoever did this was most likely trying to intimidate them, or to intimidate Cortez, as he was the one that worked on the shuttles. He asked EDI to run a DNA scan to identify whose remains these were, and then set out to find Cortez so he could interrogate him.

After searching for Cortez for a while, EDI reported that the DNA belonged to Hawthorne. She followed it with even more disturbing news—Cortez was missing from the ship.

It made no sense. They were in the middle of nowhere, with the closest planet a few days away.

/

After that, Shepard ordered everyone to start traveling in pairs. No one was to be left alone, not even to use the bathroom. Shifts were modified extensively for it, but everyone had a semblance of safety for the time being.

/

Garrus devoted himself to the case. He put together an investigation wall, trying to find what the three victims had in common to try to figure out what was happening. The three of them had worked on the _Normandy_ and were acquaintances, but nothing had stuck out that seemed to match across the three of them. He acquired the footage of the last few days for each victim, and he and Tali poured over them, as they were stuck as partners.

Tali missed working in Engineering, but she had a sharp mind and was a good person to bounce ideas off of. She was able to clear out some of the static from the times of the attack, and they managed to get a blurry picture of the offender. Whoever it was, it was a sharply dressed human, though they couldn't get a good picture of the face. Something about the figure seemed eerie, however, but Garrus had brushed it aside and continued his investigation.

It was about three days later when Garrus and Tali found a certain action that was common to all three victims—all three of them had started to look over their shoulders with startled looks on their faces whenever they were alone, with the action becoming more and more frequent until their disappearance, to which they were doing it almost every other minute. When they asked Vega about it, he told them that Cortez kept mentioning that he felt like someone was always watching him. Talking with Daniels revealed the same thing about Donnelly.

Tali had gone tense when she heard the news, and insisted on pulling Garrus aside and telling him that she had been feeling as though someone was watching her lately. When Garrus asked her as to why she didn't mention it earlier, she said that she didn't think it was important, as she thought that it was just EDI. The two of them decided to share their findings with Shepard, and headed to find her on the bridge. Tali insisted that they stop at the mess hall first, as she was thirsty and wanted a drink.

The mess hall had been empty, but something about it struck Garrus' senses as odd. Tali tensed at the elevator's entrance, and refused to go any further. She told Garrus to get her the drink, as she still wanted it, but was too afraid to get it herself.

Garrus had steeled his nerves and strode over to the kitchen. He sighed in relief when he reached there without anything happening. He then grabbed the first dextro drink he found and turned around to return to Tali, but what he saw upon turning around had him freeze on the spot.

The attacker was in the room with them.

He was tall; taller than Garrus, even, and very thin. He wore black formal attire, and there seemed to be tendrils of smoke coming out from him.

He had no face.

His head was pale white, with no features on it whatsoever.

And he was heading straight for Tali.

Tali, for her part, was just standing there, looking completely relaxed, as though she was looking at a family member rather than the man that killed three people.

Not that Garrus was doing any better. His every instinct telling him that he should run away, but he was rooted to the spot as he watched the events unfold. He felt as though he was a cornered prey, even though the predator was aiming for someone else.

Then Tali's drink slipped from his hand and crashed on the floor. This caused the man to pause, and Garrus tensed as he could feel the attacker's focus slide over to him. The blank face turned toward him, and suddenly Garrus was no longer afraid.

A wave of calmness settled over him. He felt himself relax and smile a bit, feeling comfortable in the eerie atmosphere. The logical part of his mind was stuffed way back in a corner, even as it shouted at Garrus to get moving and run away.

Near the elevator, Tali started to shake, but was silent in terror, as her scream was caught in her throat.

At the end, it was Dr. Chakwas that saved them. She stepped out of the med bay with a pistol and started shooting at the figure. Most of the shots missed, and the ones that hit passed through the figure and hit the table near Garrus. This snapped the two aliens out of it, and Tali started screaming while Garrus lunged at the man talons first. He had expected to pass right through the man, and was surprised when he actually connected with him. He was even more surprised that the tall, thin man wasn't knocked over by the attack, but was still standing upright and not budging. The surprise didn't last long, and Garrus immediately started punching.

As the first punch connected, the man let out an otherworldly scream and seemed to dissolve. The next punch connected, but the third one went right through the man. As the man dissolved into thin air, he held out a hand and grabbed Garrus' armored shoulder, pulling at him harshly. Garrus resisted and shrunk away from him, taking a few steps back and watching with surreal horror as the man simply stopped existing.

The three remaining people stood in shocked silence until a crackle came over the ship's intercom. It was followed by Joker's worried voice, asking everyone to report in. Dr. Chakwas reacted first and told Joker to get Shepard and come down here.

As the three of them explained to their commander what happened, a burning feeling started creeping into Garrus' shoulder. He ignored it until they were debriefed and Tali was no longer hyperventilating. When he finally had the chance to remove the armor to take a look at it, he was surprised to find that he indeed did have a burn mark on that shoulder, right where the man grabbed him.

The two of them decided to stay in the med bay with Dr. Chakwas and Kaidan for the night, but Dr. Chakwas was gone when they woke up in the morning.

/

The _Normandy_ was full of fear and tension when the next body showed up. James and the engineers found Cortez hanging from the gym…by his own intestines.

James refused to go to the shuttle bay after that.

/

To try and ease everyone's fraying nerves, Shepard ordered everyone to travel in groups of at least four people. No one was to be left unattended, even while they were asleep, and no group was allowed to sleep all at once. New schedules were made for everyone after they'd chosen partners, and they were all allowed to wear armor.

No one was given guns, however. Shepard didn't want them accidentally shooting each other.

She also asked Joker to set a straight route to the Citadel. Hopefully they'd get there before anything worse happened.

/

By the time Tali was attacked a second time, Garrus had come to the conclusion that the man wasn't a man at all. It was some sort of creature that most likely came from one of the uncharted ends of the galaxy. Shepard had no idea what it was and Garrus was too busy watching over Tali to spare any time messing around on his visor.

Not that it mattered; Tali disappeared two hours before they docked at the Citadel. She was walking in front of Garrus before she rounded a corner. As soon as she disappeared from his sight, the lights flickered once, and she was gone.

/

Half an hour before the docked on the Citadel, another attack occurred. Specialist Traynor was the target, and the only thing that saved her was Javik's skepticism towards the creature. The two women had tearfully testified to what happened:

They had left their group and rushed to starboard cargo to pick up something that Allers had needed, and when they turned around to leave, the creature was standing between them and the doorway. They'd both let out a scream before it calmed them down, and Javik, who was apparently cranky from all of the fear on the ship, came to the room to scold them for screaming. Instead of the words dying out in his throat at the sight of the creature, he had frowned and cleared his throat. The creature turned around to face him, and Javik had glared at it and commanded, "Be gone, creature! I will not play your games!"

The creature seemingly complied and dissolved into thin air.

Traynor said it was the bravest thing she had ever seen a man do in her life, and that she would never forget it.

Allers said that the creature was called the Slender Man, and that if the stories are true, then they were all doomed.

Despite the gloomy prophecy, Garrus felt chipper. He finally had a lead.

/

When they docked on the Citadel, Shepard ordered everyone out. Joker refused to leave, however, as EDI was inside the ship even when her mobile platform was elsewhere, and the news that she would be left alone on board had made her anxious. So Joker stayed with her, and since he couldn't be left alone, Shepard stayed with him.

Liara had also refused to leave her quarters, as her business as the Shadow Broker forced her to stay on the ship as she was constantly trying to coordinate her agents' efforts in the war, claiming that Shepard will no doubt solve this and they'll be back on track in no time.

Shepard refused to let Liara be alone, and Garrus was the only one to brave enough to volunteer to stay with her.

At least it gave Garrus plenty of time to research the Slender Man, whoever he is.

/

The more research Garrus did, the more troubled he became. As a turian, he believed in the spirits, and knew that they were neither good nor evil, and they did not interfere with the world. Yet the Slender Man was an evil spirit that interfered with the world, or so the extranet told him. The further he dug, the more disturbed he became, as the massive amount of stories painted the Slender Man as an ancient and powerful being that was attracted to people who thought about him in paranoia. He was able to change his height at will and change his arms into tentacles. He could cause people to become deathly ill with a cough, as well as instill memory loss and insomnia. _He was able to haunt people in their dreams_. _He could kill or whisk away people from within their dreams_.

It explained how Dr. Chakwas was taken from them, but it didn't explain why he took Tali.

All of the search results he had were from human experiences, some dating back over three thousand years. So the creature should not have been interested in the non-human crew members. Garrus couldn't help but feel that he was missing something, and decided to go with his gut and search for a Slender Turian.

He was surprised at how many results he got back. Most of them were from religious sects that were looked down upon by the popularity at large, but they painted the same exact image of the Slender Man: tall, thin, faceless, vaguely human looking, able to do a lot of scary things. He read a few articles in sick fascination before decided to search for the other race's versions of the creature, and was more than a little bit disturbed by the time he was done.

Every single race had their own name of the creature, and that was about where the differences ended. There were a few minor discrepancies with how to ward away the creature, but the underlying message was the same: if you ever see the creature, then you should pray for a quick death, because when the Slender Man takes you, the last thing on its mind is to kill you.

He looked at Liara from where he was sitting, and asked her about the asari version of the Slender Man. She ignored him, so he asked her again using the asari name for the creature. _That_ got her attention, and she whirled around to face him, asking him to repeat what he had said.

He repeated his question and her reply gave him no new information except that Shadow Broker might be afraid of the Slender Man. She then asked him what his interest in the creature was; he replied that it was what was haunting the _Normandy_.

He had never seen Liara look so afraid before. She swore and raced out of the room and off the ship, only stopping to tell Shepard that she will not be coming back until the haunting was over.

/

He walked up to the bridge to find Shepard and Joker reading something off of the screen in front of them, and when he tried to start a conversation with Shepard, she quickly dismissed him and told him to take a break away from the ship.

Garrus had wandered around after that, surprised to find himself at Liara's favorite café. He looked for her and found her at the counter with her father, and, upon approach, he found that Matriarch Aethyta was comforting her very upset daughter. When the Matriarch saw him approaching, she shooed Liara to the back and disappeared with her, only to return after a while and ask Garrus what he needed help with.

He asked her if Liara was going to be okay, and she told him not to worry about Liara, and that she will take care of her. She then started asking him about the haunting on the _Normandy_, to which he answered all of her questions.

After that, he warily asked her if she was okay with knowing this information, as everyone on the ship hadn't known and wound up in danger anyways. She had laughed then, her loud and boisterous laugh, and told him to not worry, that she wasn't afraid of any creature that was brought out from paranoia.

He asked her to explain what she meant, as he had never even heard of the creature before seeing it, and she told him that may have been so, but he had been looking for a monster when he found the first body. She reminds him that the Slender Man is a creature of paranoia, and, if he doesn't want the monster to come to him, then he should stop looking for it.

After that, she shooed him so she could take care of Liara. Garrus, enlightened, wandered the Citadel as he tried to figure out where this new information fit in the larger picture.

That evening, while Garrus was trying to fall asleep in a small hotel room, he was startled into a realization: Donnelly's body had never showed up. He would have to go back to the ship and ask Shepard about it.

/

Shepard had to hand it to Garrus. The turian had great detective skills and had done the Slender Man research by himself. She had pinged him early in the morning to tell him what she and Joker learned about the Slender Man Mythos, but Garrus had known all what she did and more. After he filled in all of the blanks for her, he volunteered to spend time with Joker if she wanted to take shore leave.

She kindly declined his offer, but when he insisted, she invited him to loiter on the bridge with her and Joker. She was impressed by how unafraid he seemed of the whole situation, and had to internally reassert to herself that she wasn't afraid either.

Although…She couldn't help but feel as though someone was watching her all the time.

/

It turned out that Javik wasn't part of anyone's group, and had never told anyone that he was remaining on the ship. So it surprised Shepard and scared Joker witless (but did nothing to Garrus) when he came up to the bridge while they were playing Skyllian Five. The prothean was coughing violently in between reminding them that there was a war going on that they had to fight in, and that sitting around wasn't going to get anything done. He told them that if they were so afraid of the imaginary monster, then maybe they should get an imaginary exorcism, and be done with it.

Garrus had listened with increasing worry on his features. After Javik had finished his piece, Garrus asked if Javik had seen the Slender Man anywhere, and the prothean replied that he hasn't seen it since the incident in the cargo starboard.

Javik then turned abruptly and headed to the elevator, yelling on the way back that if they don't get the ship moving by the next morning cycle, then he'll find a way to the reapers himself.

After he had disappeared into the elevator, Joker and Garrus exchanged worried looks. They then turned to Shepard for confirmation of their fear, but found her to be smiling instead. When they gave her baffled looks, she told them that an exorcism is a grand idea.

The next morning cycle, Javik is found dead in his cot. Apparently, he _literally_ coughed his lungs out. Garrus had never felt so nauseous from a case before.

Joker found it ironic that the prothean managed to survive his cycle's harvest but then died from a simple cough. Garrus would have snapped at him, but his mind was too busy analyzing how much time Joker had left. The pilot had gotten really jumpy as of late.

/

It took Shepard almost a whole day to find someone to do a multi-racial exorcism for her. The man she found had a small, private business and came highly recommended. They hashed out the details, and she paid him up front and made a deal with him that if he kept working with her quiet, she'd endorse him once the war was over. He enthusiastically agreed, and Shepard felt that he was honest enough to trust.

/

Garrus somehow managed to kick Joker off of the _Normandy_ via a combination of threats and promises. The man needed the shore leave, and the situation on the ship wasn't getting any better. The atmosphere was thick with unnerving tension and every little sound was starting to make Joker and Shepard jump. EDI was glitching up more than usual as well, and Garrus could only hope that whatever Shepard had planned, it'd get rid of the problem once and for all.

/

Joker insisted on being there when the exorcism happened, and he, Garrus, and Shepard watched in subdued awe as the whole thing happened. Joker noted that the ordeal was a much more mundane than in the vids, as there was no howling or screeching from anything or any corner of the ship. The only difference is that the atmosphere was slowly shifting from supernatural to normal. When it was over, Joker finally felt like he was back home, and whatever nastiness that was hanging around had left with the exorcist.

For the first time in a few days, Joker relaxed back in his chair and felt safe. Maybe he could legitimately sleep now.

/

After a week of nothing happening, Shepard breathed a sigh of relief and called everyone back to the _Normandy_. She reassured the crew that whatever was happening was over, and, after a few days of tension on board, everyone started to relax, and everything went back to normal.

Or as normal as it could get, anyways. Donnelly and Tali were still missing, and James still refused to go down to the shuttle bay.

Shepard called the exorcist to thank him for what he did, but found out from his assistant that he had died of a heart attack two days prior. Part of her wanted to press for details, but her gut told her that she wouldn't like what the assistant had to say, so she gave her condolences instead and tried not to think about it.

/

When they went to Thessia, everything was alright.

When they came back from Thessia, everything was very much _not_ alright, and it had nothing to do with Kai Leng and Cerberus.

It happened when Shepard went up to her cabin after the debriefing with the asari councilor. She found Tali's suit laid out on her bed, but there was no sign of Tali.

Her bad mood instantly lifted, only to be replaced by blood curling fear. She looked around her cabin to see if there were any traces of _anything_ around, but found nothing.

It was still happening.

In the end, she hid Tali's suit in the back of her armory and decided not to tell anyone. If she told her crew, they would start thinking about it, and if they thought about it, it'd bring the Slender Man back. And if he came back, then they would want to leave again. But they didn't have the kind of time to go through another exorcism, and Shepard didn't have the heart to get another man killed just to keep her ship clean for a few more days.

No, Shepard decided, this was the best course of action. Don't tell anyone and don't think about it.

/

_Sleepwalking_.

Garrus practically had a heart attack when he saw Shepard walking around the mess hall in her sleepwear. He tried to talk to her, to get her attention, but she completely ignored him. She walked through the mess hall, in and out of the med bay, and then disappeared into the elevator, all with her eyes closed. Garrus forced himself to calm down and asked EDI about it, and she enlightened him.

He asked Shepard about it in the morning, and she didn't remember anything, though she had looked mildly concerned about it.

It happened again a few nights later, and Garrus wished he had pressed the issue with her the first time. Because this time she had come to him, eyes open, and told him to follow her. He reluctantly did so, and she took him into the elevator and hit the button for the shuttle bay.

The ride was awkward, and she sidled too close to him. He could hear her whispering to herself things along the lines of "No no no I don't want to do this" and "Please not him not her" and it really unsettled him. He was sure this wasn't anxiety anymore.

When the elevator doors finally open, Shepard was flat out yelling at the empty room while marching right through it. Garrus followed her warily, expecting a something to pop out and attack them.

When she stopped walking and lifted her arm to point, he started to wish that a monster did pop up and attack him.

She was pointing at Tali. The poor girl was without her suit, and looked like she was dying. Garrus didn't stop to stare at her as he went to her, checking her pulse to find out that she's _alive_. He didn't stop as he scooped her up and took her to the med bay, hoping that Shepard would be safe alone.

/

Shepard woke up the next morning on the floor of the shuttle bay. Baffled, she made her way up to her cabin to put on proper clothing before heading down to the mess hall. When she walked in, she was surprised to find that the room was full of tension and fear. She faltered a little before putting confidently striding into the room. When she noticed that everyone's eyes were on her, she confronted them with an annoyed "What?" and was surprised by the request to return to the Citadel. When she asked why, only Kaidan was brave enough to tell her that Garrus had found Tali last night. In the shuttle bay.

It really was happening again. They were all thinking it.

/

Shepard was avoiding Garrus and he knew it. He didn't bother chasing her around the ship. Instead, he told EDI to notify him when Shepard was heading up to her cabin, as he had decided to corner her there.

She didn't head up there until near the end of his shift, and he was on his way up before he could change his mind.

He had to talk to her. He had to tell her about her sleepwalking.

All of his confessions died on his tongue when he found her with Tali's suit in her hands. She gave him one terrified look and mumbled that she could explain.

/

Tali was a mess. She kept muttering about how she got away and how Donnelly was still there and how she had left him behind even though he was pleading for her to get her out of there. She mumbled about how she had seen into his true mind and how vast and evil it was. She mumbled the same protesting phrases Shepard had yelled, and sometimes just flat out screamed.

Dr. Michel, who had replaced Dr. Chakwas aboard the _Normandy_, hand never felt so helpless before. She did her best to keep Tali sedated and full of antibiotics, but, even with the suit, the girl had a long way to go before she recovered physically.

As for her mental state…the doctor feared the worst.

/

By the time they docked at the Citadel, more than half of the crew was gone, and all but two of them were found dead in many different ways. The ship barely had a skeleton crew to keep her running, and EDI was working overtime to keep things decent. She was glitching up again, and a lot more frequently.

Joker didn't care too much. He was sure that Shepard would just need to call the exorcist again and everything will be solved.

When she told him what happened to the exorcist, he started to freak out again. Maybe there really was no escaping this thing.

/

When they tried to move Tali to the Huerta Memorial Hospital, she went into complete and irrational panic. She refused to exit the _Normandy_, and screamed and struggled and _attacked_ anyone who tried to get her out. She simply didn't recognize any of her friends and their reassurances. When she was finally restrained and sedated, she started to bash her head against any surface that was within her reach. She had cracked her visor before they could get her away from any hard surfaces, and, when she found that there was nothing she could do to prevent her leaving, she broke down and started to cry, begging and pleading for them to keep her on the ship. No one listened to her pleas, however, as she needed professional treatment at the hospital.

Upon her admittance to the hospital, she started screaming at how he was everywhere and that he was going to get her. When she started panicking, they tried to sedate her again, but she broke of her captors' grip and ran screaming through the hospital. They didn't catch up to her until after she'd gone four floors up and was standing near a smashed-open window. When they tried to talk her away from the ledge, she told them that she would rather die than have him catch her again, and jumped.

They all watched in horror as she fell, but even more horrific was the fact that she never hit the floor—someone was standing right where she would have fallen and seemed to be just waiting for her. When she was within arm's reach, the man held out his arms and grabbed her, and the two of them dissolved into thin air.

The cameras couldn't confirm what happened, as they had all broken down at the time and showed only static.

/

It was as though Tali had somehow managed to free the Slender Man from the confines of the _Normandy_. Before her death, the crew was safe the moment they stepped off the _Normandy_, but now, Shepard was getting distressed reports from the crew members that were on shore leave that they kept seeing him.

Kaidan and James wound up coming back to the ship, figuring that if they couldn't escape him, they might as well wait for him alongside the others.

Shepard had welcomed them back and bade them good luck, though she was secretly angry with them for leaving in the first place.

Not that she dwelled on it for too long. She soon received reports of the disappearance of Daniels and Traynor, and all she could think of was how it was all her fault.

/

Liara still refused to come back to the _Normandy_. She stayed with her father, and was still growing more and more distressed. Nothing the Matriarch did seemed to ease her anguish, even though she complied with Liara's wish to stay with her at all times. She even took her daughter to work with her, and made her work as well, but nothing changed. Liara only grew more and more distressed as time passed, and started lashing out at Aethyta, thinking she was someone else.

It came to a climax right after work one night, when both the asari's shifts ended. The new employees had come in for their shift, and when Liara saw them, she screamed that they would never take her alive and let her biotic energy loose. She managed to knock out the poor workers before her father tried to restrain her, but she ran away when she found her attacks to be useless. Aethyta ran after her, calling her name, but Liara wouldn't listen to reason. She kept running until she hit a ledge, then stopped and held her ground, ready to fight.

The Matriarch didn't try to fight her daughter, but words did absolutely nothing as well. Approaching her was useless as well, as Liara got more and more desperate the shorter the distance became between them.

Something Aethyta said wound up breaking through to Liara, and Liara snapped back to reality, looking horrified. The Matrarich walked up Liara and watched as her daughter's terror increased with each step. She snapped at Liara, telling her that she was being ridiculous, and that there was no such thing as monsters, and that the Slender Man couldn't exist because he was a game of the mind. All Liara did in reply was open and close her mouth like a sunfish, until finally, Aethyta stood within arm's reach of her daughter and asked her what she had to say for herself.

Liara only barely managed to choke out "behind you" when Aethyta felt—and saw—long, black tendrils snake out from behind her and grab both of them. The Matriarch struggled and resisted, but Liara simply stood there, looking tired and defeated, and let the darkness take her.

/

EDI was becoming corrupted. This news had Joker severely distressed, and he refused to leave her side. He tried to be lighthearted about it, but he knew the truth—EDI was going to become nonfunctional soon. And even though he knew the Slender Man was coming for him very soon, he refused to leave her.

He cared for her too much.

/

Diana Allers was always one fantastic reporter. She always had a way to get what she wants, and what she had wanted was footage of the monster that was hunting her. She wanted it as proof of what was happening, to show people she wasn't going crazy. She wanted it so that maybe someday it would help someone find a way to defeat the Slender Man, even if it wasn't in time to save her.

She did her research and found that all of the cameras of this century were just really bad at capturing the supernatural. So she worked hard and procured some barely working last century HD cameras to scatter around her apartment. She got them working and reviewed them daily, saving all of the useful footage on an OSD addressed to Shepard.

She recorded her own descent to madness, and, after she'd passed on, Shepard cried silent tears of fear as she watched the files on the OSD.

/

The worst turn of events started when Garrus woke up one morning cycle and found that EDI wasn't responding. Alarmed, he rushed to the bridge to find out what happened, and was dismayed by what he found.

Joker was dead in his chair. He wore a look of fear and pain on his face and parts of him twisted in a way that was clearly unnatural. EDI's mobile body was covered in blood and lay twitching on the floor next to Joker. She made a whirring sound now and again, and every few minutes she'd say a half garbled word that meant nothing and did everything to increase tension in the air.

There was no sign of Kaidan and James, who were supposed to be watching Joker. But after looking for them, he found them both dead with broken necks in the shuttle bay. Garrus had sighed and headed up to Shepard's cabin to report what had happened.

They were now the only two people left from the crew.

/

Garrus was surprised at Shepard's reaction when he heard the news. She had broken down into visible tears, telling him that she was next and that she could feel it. She confessed to him about how the Slender Man was in her room every night, about how she would see his face and black out, waking up a few hours later with no memory of what happened. She then accused him, with tears in her eyes and betrayal on her face, about how he never seemed to have any problems with the Slender Man, and how the worst of it for him was the nightmares. She sobbed about how unfair it was, before finally breaking down and asking—almost begging—for help. She didn't want to be taken, she'd told him. She didn't want to go out like this.

Garrus could do nothing more than hold her and give her false promises. He didn't know why the Slender Man hadn't bothered with him, but he knew that there was no saving her from him.

/

Garrus watched over a sleeping Shepard with a gun in his hand and stims on the coffee table. He hadn't gone to sleep since Shepard's breakdown, and he refused to leave her alone for even a minute, knowing that the Slender Man would take her the moment he looked away. He knew at that he was only putting off the inevitable, but the day he would let Shepard be taken without a fight was the day the reapers decided to just go home.

He may not have known why the Slender Man had no interest in him, but he theorized that it was because he was simply not looking for the creature. A part of him knew that apprehending the suspect wasn't an option, and that protecting the victims was the only chance. So he didn't jump at any of the ship's creaking, and didn't look in the dark corners for a monster that was most probably there. Instead, his eyes were always on the ones he sought to protect, which, right now, meant Shepard.

He didn't know how long he sat there, watching her sleep, but each time the nightmares started, he would wake her and remind her that it was okay, that he was there. Nevertheless, she woke up each time with a new bruise from where she was manhandled by the Slender Man in her dreams.

In the end, the Slender Man's patience won over. The stims had run out after a few days' use, and Garrus had collapsed where he stood, leaving Shepard alone in her final hours.

/

In her final moments, Donnelly had finally appeared. He came out of the elevator, looking normal and unscathed, but his eyes—his eyes had a vacant, empty look to them. His whole face was blank, a perfectly neutral expression that was somehow deader than a corpse's. Shepard clutched Garrus' unconscious body and reached for his gun. Donnelly stood unmoving as she found the gun and leveled the barrel at his chest. As soon as he had opened his mouth, she had loaded him with a whole clip of bullets, refusing to hear what he had to say. It didn't matter at the end anyways, since his voice whispered into her head even as his body collapsed.

_Don't look behind you._

She didn't. Instead, she ran.

She ran to the nearest place where she would find a gun or a thermal clip, and, upon finding one, she put the weapon to her head and fired.

/

Garrus woke up to the red lights of the main battery. He had fallen asleep on the console while it was compiling.

A dream.

It had all been a dream.

He sighed in relief, throwing his head back and laughing a little at how relieved he felt. At least he had a horror story to tell now.

He stood up and stretched, wincing at the stiffness in his joints. He took one last look at the compiling code and turned around to exit the main battery. Donnelly and Shepard were in the mess hall, setting on opposite sides of the table. Garrus let out a small laugh and called to them, but his call died in his throat when they turned to face him.

Donnelly's shirt was soaked in his own coagulated blood. Shepard had a bullet wound in her head. They were dead but still moving. Garrus felt the atmosphere of the room change from the usual cold of space to the eerie tension that had now become associated with the Slender Man. Garrus' hands went for his guns, but they were missing, so instead he put them up ready for a fight.

His long dead friends moved slowly. They rose from their chairs and stalked towards him, walking in the way only the undead do. Once they reached him, they took hold of his arms on either side and said in unison,

_Don't look behind you._

Then they turned him slowly until he saw what was behind him.

/

Admiral Hackett didn't know what to make of any of it. He went to sleep with the news that the _Normandy_ was still docked at the Citadel and still behind schedule. When he woke up, the reports told him that the _Normandy_ had disappeared from the Citadel without a trace, and none of the systems had a record of the ship leaving, as everything glitched at the time it did.

He kept pinging Commander Shepard, trying to find out what was going on, but the reply was only static.

They found the ship a week later, deep in the Terminus systems. It was completely abandoned, and the VI on board was nonfunctional. There was only tension in the air, and walking onto the _Normandy_ felt like walking into a crypt. The crew that found the _Normandy_ had disappeared within a few hours, leaving only one message behind,

_Don't look behind you._

And now, as the Admiral stood in the middle of the CIC, he couldn't help feeling tense and feeling as though someone—or something—was watching him. And, in direct inverse of the message, he kept looking behind him.

To say he was glad when he stepped off the _Normandy_ was an understatement. But it was with dawning horror that, when a few hours later, he went to his cabin and found Commander Shepard sitting on his bed, soaked in congealed blood that poured from the bullet wound in her head. She turned to look at him, eyes vacant and soulless, and uttered,

_Don't look behind you._

He did.

/

**_Don't look behind you. _**


End file.
